Esurio
by JackSparrowsBooty
Summary: The SVU squad faces one of the worst perps yet—a cannibal strikes their district and threatens to rip apart their lives—one by one.
1. Chapter 1

It was life doing that typical 180 degree turn into the pits again that had Olivia pinned underneath some sadistic, cannibalistic creep, bleeding from her gut, and once again considering the real possibility of being a victim of sexual assault, a _rape victim_, facing certain death.

Death she could handle, because her job required a certain amount of grace under pressure, being a cop—a _female_ cop, no less—guaranteed at least a small amount of danger. This she expected. However, most people rarely experienced life-changing moments that involved severe emotional trauma or possible sexual violation; by now, sadly, she was an old pro.

The man poised over her, Brad Ulrich, wasn't even the archetypal, evil looking predator that people usually expected when imagining a cruel, man-eating killer, which was probably why he'd been able to remain under the radar for so long. He was a good-looking kid with choirboy looks, patchy stubble on his youthful jaw, wide green eyes, even a nice demeanor. The sweet, saccharine smile had now curved his lips upward into something that was cunning yet vacant of emotion. The long, bony fingers of his left hand had a surprising amount of strength in them and had her wrists locked in a solid grasp, while the other yielded a four-inch black Smith and Wesson hunting knife. She could feel the cold, smooth steel slide over her even through the cotton shirt she was wearing.

Olivia heard faint gasps a few feet away, where her partner lay dying, bleeding profusely from two stab wounds to the back. Ulrich had caught them off guard by creating a textbook diversion tactic with the noisy toss of a brick into a nearby spider-webbed window. This had led them into the moth eaten place, on guard, but unassuming as they went the wrong direction. He'd made sure to produce the right kind of clamor in the dark space and then go silent to confuse them—crept up behind Elliot, delivered two quick, devastating blows with the hunting blade, and moved instantly toward her to do the same. He'd taken advantage of her shock and disbelief and jabbed the blood-covered knife into her lower abdomen, grabbing control easily. _Too _easily. They should have been more cautious, more prepared. They were seasoned veterans, so really, none of it should have happened _period. _The only excuse that she could fabricate in a drifting mind is that they had been so enraptured by their own personal demons, they'd basically given him the perfect opportunity to strike.

She remembered the gush of crimson liquid seeping from the fabric of his light dress shirt, and she recalled feeling alarmed at the volume that poured from the wounds—she'd only been given a brief moment to see him attempt to remove the safety of his Glock so that he could retaliate, but he hardly managed to stagger a few steps before his knees buckled. He'd tumbled face-first into the cold cement floor of the abandoned warehouse they'd been staking out for the last three hours. His gun had skittered to the right and away from view.

She was brought back to the present when she heard a small, stifled pop as the man yanked apart the front of her pants, and she had a sudden strange moment where the world became bright, her mind clear. Everything seemed _too real_. Sensations overwhelming.

It was happening. She was lying on the ground, bleeding from a stab wound; Elliot was slipping away very rapidly from the shock of his back injury, and their suspect was tearing off her clothes to use her body for his twisted sexual appetite. It was real. It was really happening. To _them._

But it _couldn't _be real! her mind screamed as she stared in fascinated horror at the soft dip of the kid's neck and clavicle, as she contemplated the very fabric of what made him human, his flesh and blood, knowing that he had a mother somewhere, possibly a spouse, a lover, someone who cared about him. She then let her eyes drift to his face, the cruel, detached grin—like he was conducting a school science experiment. She was the animal waiting for dissection, and he was the demented, over-eager future sociopath pinning her to his tray. She realized with dissociated interest that she was simply a specimen to him. A _thing. _Not an actual person who felt pain or emotion.

She felt a moment of terror fill her when she realized that she was becoming weak. The fear shot through her like a lightning bolt, and she knew that this was her body's natural response to the spike in anxiety. Adrenaline began coursing through her, despite the shock that was settling over her senses.

She was losing blood. Fast.

But she contemplated what would happen if she gave into the growing weakness and could not overpower the sick freak, or if back up didn't miraculously materialize—he would have his way with her, slice her up like he'd done to the Quinn family and Kayla Sanders, drink her blood, wash his hands and face, and disappear into the night. Just like he had done to the others. God only knew if law enforcement would find him after that. He'd probably be in Canada by the time they realized they had two dead detectives in an abandoned warehouse in the middle of urban nowhere. How many other countless victims would he murder and cannibalize if she could not stop him?

Olivia fought the growing feebleness and struggled to free her arms from his left hand. They were clammy with sweat and enabled her to slither from his bone-crushing grip. She swung quickly with as much force as she could rally, aiming for his left cheek. He laughed, easily dodging her strike, then brought his knife back toward her body, the smile swooping into a vicious scowl. Olivia caught the blade before it plunged into the heaving expanse of her chest.

Suddenly she was fighting a new battle—forcing the weapon away with the exposed skin of her palms. She squirmed ferociously and ignored the slick feeling of blood trickling down her forearms as her hands split on contact with the sharp end of the blade.

"Yeah, oh yeah, I love a good fight!" he said in a seductive voice as he pushed his lower body into hers. "Show me how mad you are, honey!"

"I'll kill you, Ulrich!" she spat, barbs of pain erupting from her palms as she pushed with all her might.

He shoved back with more malice, giggling girlishly. "I think you should be more concerned with yourself, sweetie, 'cause when you stop fighting me, it'll be quick. Don't get me wrong, I love a challenge. But you're only drawing it out." He sank down closer to her so he could whisper in her face and she moved away in disgust. "I always get what I want. I'm gonna have my way with _you_, your partner, and I'm gonna make it last, you understand? You'll always be a part of me. You'll always be _inside of me_."

Olivia's body was thrumming with pain at that point, and her heart was beating so frantically that her pulse began pounding in her ears, drowning her senses in the thunderous sound. The ferocity of her efforts was waning—she was not strong enough to withstand the blood loss, damage to her internal organs, the shock, and her body was succumbing on its own despite her fervor.

"No," she growled from clenched teeth, arms trembling violently. "I _won't_ _let you_!" Darkness began seeping into the corners of her vision and the intense zeal to fight back and live turned to blind panic. She couldn't keep the frightened whimper from surfacing, and tears slipped from the corners of her eyes uncontrollably.

_It can't end this way._

It was at this moment that the familiar report of gunfire filled the air of the cement room. As quickly as the attack came, the pressure eased from her wrists just as quickly and the man bonelessly slumped on top of her, spilling his last breath and warm brain matter into the crook of her neck. She turned her face again and noticed that Elliot had been able to find his gun from wherever it had fallen, and had aimed at Ulrich's head. He was alarmingly pale, no color in his lips or face, but he wore a look of satisfaction. And just like that, his eyes rolled back, his hands dropped with a loud clamoring when his service pistol hit the ground, and his cheek landed with it.

Gone.

A loud bang erupted shortly afterward when the door to the room was thrust into the wall and the shouts and footsteps mingled together into a combined garble of noise. Olivia was shuddering painfully, unable to control the trembling. The iron smell of the blood and tissue caused her stomach to churn, and right when she felt as though she would vomit, Brad Ulrich was shoved off her by a well-aimed shoe.

A face swam in front of her, which resembled John Munch—face gray and slack with shock. "Olivia," he muttered, instantly yanking off his coat to press it into the wound in her side. "Olivia? Stay with me," he said, and turned away to place a frantic radio call for the nearest available EMS. "Central, 10-13! I repeat, 10-13 at this location! We need a bus _forthwith_, you _hear me?_"

Olivia looked to Elliot again and noticed Cragen and Fin had emerged and were kneeling before his sprawled body. They removed the weapon from his limp fingers and quickly pushed fabric into his wounds to suppress the bleeding. She watched their movements, worry sparking inside of her despite her rapidly declining condition. She was beginning to feel the heavy pull of overwhelming exhaustion. "El—"

Munch touched her cheek, rubbing his thumb over it soothingly. "Liv, don't worry. Paramedics are on the way. They'll take care of him, I promise. We're not going to lose you, all right?" He moved out of sight, but kept talking to her. "You have got to stay awake, you got me? Don't even close your eyes."

She nodded, but the darkness from before returned with more force, and her body seemed to relax into the cold ground, sink into the strange comfort and accept it. The cement floor suddenly felt good. The pain began to dissipate. She knew she had to fight it, knew that this was bad, but she could no longer concentrate on why this was so.

Her eyes slid closed as all the sights and sounds of the world drifted away.

_ Two weeks earlier_

Elliot was supposed to be typing out his DD5s to finish his official reports of one of five active abuse cases on his desk, but he was distracted by the entrance of his partner as she trudged into the open squad room, forgoing the trip to the locker room and immediately shrugging off her wool jacket with a roll of her eyes. She stopped at her chair, sighing as she dropped her handbag onto the floor and flung her jacket over the back of her seat, then met his curious gaze across their adjoined desks.

"Bad news, I take it," he mumbled from his reclined position, then moved his crisscrossed feet from the untouched stacks of manila folders and leaned his elbows against the small table.

Olivia sat untidily, draping her hands over the armrests of her chair. "Acquittal."

What once would be an explosive bout of anger at the injustice of a clearly guilty perp sliding through the conveniently placed cracks of the justice system, remained as a grimly-accepting sigh. "What happened?"

"Defense ripped him apart. Langen grilled him like a pit bull, destroying any credibility in front of the jury even though the judge struck his comments from record. You know how that goes, once it's said it can't be _un_said. But supposedly there wasn't enough solid evidence to convict."

"That's such crap. How long did the jury take to deliberate?"

"Less than thirty minutes." Olivia slid her chair closer to her side of the desk, a mirthless smile raising her lips.

Elliot made a grumbling noise in the back of his throat, and then palmed his forehead. "Six months of investigation down the drain in five minutes. Nice."

She stared at the ceiling, feeling the same measure of irritation and defeat. "The evidence was circumstantial, El. It was never concrete. And eyewitness testimony can easily be overturned when enough doubt is raised, you know that."

"Daniels is gonna walk because our only credible witness made the mistake of seeing him at night. Just watch, Liv. In a week, we'll have a new case on our desk with the same MO, except this time the woman he rapes will be dead."

Olivia shook her head, and then pushed the anger from her thoughts. They had to take the losses with the wins. This was something every city employee had to stomach with a gloomy acceptance. Not one person on their crew would be able to operate on the job if they got caught up in the injustices of the way the law worked. It was necessary to remove herself emotionally from her cases in order to function the rest of the day—otherwise she would go insane with rage. She used to hold onto it all, bring cases home, let the victims and perps live in her mind well after she'd punched the clock, but she'd been working in the unit long enough to adjust. The first few years were the hardest, with some of the longest nights of disturbed sleep filled with fear, wrath, and sadness. It got easier over time.

"I'll give Erica a call later to see how she's doing," she said quietly, training her eyes to her computer and compelling herself to concentrate on something else. Elliot took the cue and diligently returned to the forms in front of him until the door to the room was thumped open and Fin's stocky form strolled in with haste. This always meant something significant had taken place—both detectives hoped for something good.

"What's up?" Elliot asked as Fin and Munch stopped at their desks a few feet away.

Fin answered as he pulled on his coat and yanked a dark beanie over his head. "We got a pretty nasty one over in the Tribeca area. We're gonna need all the help we can get, so you and Liv should come along. CSU and the ME are on their way already."

Olivia groaned. She'd only had minutes before needing to get up once again.

It never ended.

Elliot had been cooped up for a few hours, so he was eager to join the two other men, donning his suit jacket. "Pretty nasty, huh? You mean worse than we deal with already?"

Munch shrugged his thin shoulders. "9-1-1 operator took a call from a man about an hour ago, saying it looks like someone painted his girlfriend's apartment in her blood. Responding officers said it's gruesome, and that there's evidence of sexual penetration before and after her death, so that's why they called us."

Olivia sidled up behind Elliot, raising her dramatic eyebrows. "A real Romeo."

"It gets worse," Munch responded gravely.

She followed the group out of the room, shaking her head. "There's more? What now?"

Fin pressed his lips together, almost appearing to be sick. "She was pregnant."

Olivia immediately glanced at Elliot after hearing of the victim's condition, and she noticed the tendons in his jaw jumped as he clenched his teeth together. When cases involved children, even _in utero_, he had a tendency to let his emotions cloud better judgment. She could feel her intuition foist its way into her senses—this case would be emotionally trying, and like previous investigations involving children or mothers, he would respond with flailing, barely controlled emotions.

His head turned, and he met her gaze as if he'd read her mind and discerned her unease. "I'll be fine."

She almost chuckled at his retort, and thought it was endlessly amusing that they could read each other so well, but it was something to be expected after over a decade of partnership. "Cragen know where we're going?"

Fin answered. "He's waiting for us by now. Let's go."


	2. Chapter 2

AN: For those of you who may be familiar with this story already, yes, it was posted on SVUFic before the site lapsed and closed down. I was never truly satisfied with the way it sounded, so it spent a lot of time sitting on my computer waiting for editing. The same can be said for 'Pox' which generated a lot of attention previously, but I hated the way some of it seemed. So forgive me for that! It can still be found on AO3 (I couldn't delete it for some reason).

Anyway, on with the show!

* * *

It was a rocking motion that woke her—that and a shrill, blaring alarm sounding off next to her ear. For a moment, she allowed the noise to continue its incessant shrieking without offering it much thought, because she was overwhelmingly exhausted. However, she could not stop herself from being reeled back into semi-consciousness—that curious moment she often felt right before she opened her eyes to welcome the world.

Olivia lay flat for a while without putting too much thought to her condition, such as why she was sleeping, and that she couldn't even recall laying down in her bed—not to mention how heavy and lifeless she felt until she suddenly realized with a jolt of clarity that the last thing she remembered was staring into Munch's face from the cold, cement floor of that contemptible, decrepit building.

She opened her eyes then and recognized the tight quarters of an ambulance before her, as well as the hovering EMT in his standard black FDNY uniform baring the paramedic insignia that set him apart from the firefighters who shared the same unit.

Olivia felt that odd sense of unreality move over her as she stared at the ceiling of the vehicle, and the cabin swayed with the stop-and-go of the in-town traffic. The world around her seemed blurred and less focused, and she could feel the effects of nausea rise up from the pit of her stomach, stronger in its force than before when Ulrich had been slumped on top of her and that disgusting combination of iron smell and the sweat of the dead man coalesced into one repulsive odor right underneath her nose. The churning grew with a force that denied any attempts at ignoring it.

She noticed that the shrieking alarm's volume was lowered—its origin was emitting from a heart monitor, and a quick, sidelong glance in its direction gave her the indication that she wasn't doing so great, but being she was no medical expert, she could not interpret the measurements and numbers before her.

"How far are we?" the young EMT shouted to the driver, who remained out of view. The kid turned and he removed his stethoscope, pressing the end to her exposed abdomen, close enough to the wound—_stab wound—_ that a fierce throb spread across her middle like a rolling burn. As she grimaced in response to the spark of pain, he listened intently and his partner answered.

"ETA two minutes!" a deep voice rumbled back. Olivia moved to touch the wound in her side, anxiety flooding into her mind when she noticed that her arms and legs were weighty and cold, and her abdomen felt unusually swollen. She took a tentative breath in and whimpered quietly at the flash of pain it caused when her stomach expanded. It felt as if each breath stretched the skin surrounding the wound and everything felt distended, pulled tight.

"How's she doing, Jim?"

The medic pressed the stethoscope to the flesh of Olivia's stomach, and she could see his face melt into frustration. "Absent bowel sounds on the left. I think the knife may have perforated the peritoneal cavity. I'll radio the ER to tell them to prepare her for an emergency laparotomy." She tried to let the horrifying words sink in. A knife wound and surgery? What else could possibly go wrong? "BP is low at 90/50, and she's tachy at 120, even with IV fluids." Olivia's vision swam as the blood loss began to muddle her brain. Strangely, she was not thinking about how frighteningly close she was to dying. Instead, her mind went to Elliot. Visions of her partner's body bleeding and stumbling, then eyes rolling back terrified her more than anything she was facing herself. Elliot was in trouble. The idea of him dying was a far more fearsome thought.

She had little time to mull over their misfortune, as the vehicle pulled into the ambulance bay and a team of doctors thrust open the back door, readily yanking the stretcher out and surrounding her like a swarm of bees. Olivia stared up at them blearily, as if she were viewing these people as they rushed alongside her from a TV screen. The faces blended into an assemblage of bright lights, mint hospital green, and unyielding concern and she turned her cheek away from the sight. It was too overwhelming and her brain was already mush as a result of lack of oxygen and hypovolemia, she was sure. As she trained her eyes toward the right, she wondered if she would ever be able to know if her partner would make it. She'd never get the image of the immediate stream of blood pouring from his back and the lifeless slump of his body as it hit the ground from her dreams. That is, of course, if she lived to ever have any more nights of disturbed sleep.

She recalled the way he looked earlier that very morning. She'd walked into the squad room from a restless three hour nap in the crib to see him standing over his side of their attached desk. He was clad in dark gray slacks and a pinstriped button-down shirt. This was his back-up outfit—she knew this because she'd seen him stuff it in there about six months ago when they'd dealt with yet another overnight stay in the crib, during a case demanding full attention and overriding the attempt at fleeing for home and a far more comfortable bed—the shirt in question, although clean, was slightly wrinkled.

She noticed that his back was taut as an overstretched rubber band, his head bent in concentration. She knew innately to leave him alone, because, despite his experience on the job and the countless atrocities he'd witnessed, assuming the position as lead detective over the case had been difficult for him, especially after the Quinns' murder. He blamed himself for the devastating turn of events—of course, he naturally felt that he had not done enough on his part to avoid the lurid slaughtering of the family. She understood the frustration of being so _close_, practically _feeling _the suspect's presence, calculating his next move, just needing that one piece of evidence or lead that would break the case wide open. Only to have that one piece never reveal itself until something horrible happened, like the Quinn family murder.

She remembered strolling over to him, fully expecting his tight, signature glare, but had been surprised by the emotion he relayed instead. His blue eyes were bright, ardently conveying sincere anguish, and she realized as she had glanced down at his hands, he was holding the murder victim's files, clutching them, white-knuckled.

All of a sudden, her chest tightened in sudden, horrifying grief and she couldn't breathe. The terror she felt was abrupt and uncontrollable.

Let him live. Let me live. _Please_.

The stretcher was raced into a trauma room, a sickeningly sterile area with whitewash walls. Harsh lights shone down on her form and distorted voices shouted out demands and other confusing data. Her clothes were cut from her body and flung away, her shoes removed and thrown into the heap of ruined fabric off to the side. She tried to choke out a plea from underneath the oxygen mask over her mouth and nose, but she was interrupted by the disturbing scene in the next room.

Elliot.

Doctors swarmed around her partner, splattered in crimson. They were moving at a frantic pace—clearly making a zealous attempt at stabilizing his condition before moving him off to surgery, which at the present time looked rather bleak. She watched as the figures in scrubs and yellow-colored protective covers measured his vitals, loaded IV and blood bags onto the metal poles next to him, and desperately peered into his eyes with a penlight.

Something in her periphery registered the obvious company of someone perched over her, and her gaze shifted to the left where a nurse was peering down into her face. "Detective Benson, my name is Leah, and I'm one of the nurses that will be preparing you for surgery, okay? Can you understand me?"

Olivia took a shaky breath in experimentally, remembering the burning from before and she expected the action to cause the familiar siege of pain to roll over her middle as before. Amazingly, the awful sensation had begun to ease, but she presumed that this was likely a result of the medication pumped into her veins to relax her before her operation. A complimentary push of comfort so that she didn't contemplate possibly slipping quietly into the perpetual night and have a moment of panic. A calm patient was easier to deal with. Pain aside, she began sucking in air greedily and everything seemed less muddled, more tranquil.

A man's voice to the right of her sounded. "All right, Detective, tests indicate that your small bowel may have been perforated by the stab wound. You'll need surgery in order to repair the defect, okay? Laparotomies are very safe procedures, and your chance of survival is virtually one hundred percent, as long as we get the show on the road now."

She nodded, confused, but accepting. "Okay," she whispered, then raised her hand. "Wait," she said with quiet determination. "My-my partner, Elliot. Is he—"

Leah the nurse smiled stiffly, the action not quite meeting her eyes. "He'll need surgery as well. There's some blood loss, but he's responding positively to IV resuscitation. He's already been moved upstairs."

Olivia looked over to where Elliot had been and noticed his stretcher was gone from the next room, and in the wake of his transfer to the elevator were the scattered remains of bloody fabric, gauze, tape, tubes, and the shed drapes and gloves of her partner's medical team. She felt the rush of uneasy tears try to surface, but she pushed them back stubbornly. "Please don't let him die," she choked out from a tangled throat.

"We're going to do our best," the doctor muttered. "All right, she's stable. Let's move her."

_Two weeks earlier_

There was no mistaking the scene before them when Olivia and Elliot's department issued sedan pulled up to the apartment building. They were definitely in the right location—the red flashing lights of squad cars lit up the increasingly darkening skies, and scores of curious bystanders surrounded the caution tape that had been set up to establish a perimeter and to keep the rubberneckers out of the way. It was always disturbing for Olivia to see how fascinated people were by gore, and that they would sometimes go out of their way to catch even the slightest glimpse of a dead body.

Still, it was always important to survey the crowd, as there were times when the sick freak would stand amongst the gathering of people to observe the efforts of law enforcement and relish in the thrill of the crime and the community response. This is where the perp got his or her true gratification—witnessing for him or herself the horror in the expressions of the bystanders, the first responders. Olivia let her eyes rove around the faces to see if her police intuition screamed at her in any way. But the crowd was simply too large for her to notice anything right off, so she slogged up to the yellow tape and ducked underneath it, following the three other detectives into the building.

The rusty smell of blood hit her senses before they even approached the victim's apartment. Pushing past the officials milling about and blinking from the camera flashes of scrutinizing forensic technicians and over the threshold into the space inside, Olivia recognized her captain standing in the middle of the room, speaking in low tones to the resident medical examiner, Melinda Warner.

"Hey, Captain, Warner," Elliot greeted, grimacing as he snapped on rubber gloves. Cragen and Melinda nodded at them, their normally passive faces slightly washed-out. "What have we got?"

Don Cragen sighed, then motioned at the group to follow him toward the bedroom. "Our vic's name is Kayla Sanders—twenty-three, approximately six months pregnant. Boyfriend found her after getting off of work and called it in. She was pronounced DOA around 4:30 in the afternoon from multiple stab wounds."

They stopped at the doorway to the young woman's bedroom, and Olivia's breath caught in her chest. The small area was filled with the overwhelming smell of iron now, enough to nauseate even the most seasoned professional. "Geez, there's blood everywhere," she said, eyes wandering around the walls, carpet, and bed, then fixing on the motionless woman's form on the ground, covered lightly by a blue sheet. "Looks like someone took a bath in it."

"A little bit of an understatement, would you say?" Munch wondered, stepping over a pair of shoes to examine the woman's dresser.

Elliot kneeled before the body, lifting the sheet and winced for a moment. "The perp was angry about something." He let the sheet fall from his grasp as Melinda regarded him in sympathy. "He mutilated her," he muttered, his shocked expression descending into revulsion.

"Her midsection was sliced open, and it appears as though some of her organs were removed," the medical examiner said in a stoic tone. She bent to sit on her haunches and lifted the sheet once again, and pointed at what was left of the woman's abdomen while the rest of the group leaned in. "The cuts are jagged and sloppy—definitely someone in a hurry who has no professional training or practice."

Fin met her steely gaze. "And the baby?"

Melinda knelt down, prodding Kayla Sanders' middle carefully. "Still there."

Olivia's thoughts went to the boyfriend. "This looks pretty personal. You think someone was upset about her being pregnant? Maybe the boyfriend couldn't handle being a parent and decided to kill her, set it up like he stumbled upon her body, then put on a show for the police when they arrived."

Cragen shook his head. "The boyfriend, Kyle Cornwall, has a pretty airtight alibi. His boss confirmed that he was behind his desk from 7:00 in the morning until about 4:00."

"Well, he lives within a reasonable walking distance from his home, so he could have easily just came home from his lunch break and returned to work as if nothing happened."

Fin checked his watch. "What's the approximate time of death?"

Melinda responded in her passive manner, the usual dissociated routine of an ME unaffected by the horrors of carnage. "The body hasn't developed full rigor yet. Judging by the state the body is in, I'd estimate she's been dead for about five hours."

"Okay, that means she was killed between 12:00 and 1:00 p.m.," Elliot added, then stood to his fullest height to study the blood splatter on Kayla Sanders' wall. "That's a typical lunch hour. What was lover boy doing at that time? Do we know?"

"Mr. Cornwall's already agreed to answer questions down at the stationhouse." Cragen picked up a picture frame, narrowing his eyes at the photo. The couple appeared genuinely happy. "From what I understand, he spent his lunch with a friend from his office, and was practically inconsolable when the responding patrols arrived."

Melinda pointed at an area around the woman's rib cage. "I also noticed something a little unusual," she said, tracing a pattern with her gloved finger. "See this?"

Olivia frowned at the mangled flesh, forcing herself to remain professional despite her immediate reaction to the gruesome sight was horrified aversion. "Teeth marks."

Munch screwed his face up in disgust. "Her killer bit her where he stabbed her and cut out her organs?"

The ME nodded. "Looks like her killer did it post-mortem."


End file.
